Thursday, December 6th, 2012

Somehow I got signed up for the “Opposing Views” newsletter. I don’t know how; it just happened. “Opposing Views” appears to have a leftist bias, but they do have interesting articles once in a while, so I never unsubscribed.

Kindergarten isn’t the place parents assume their kids will get their first reality check. It’s usually where kids can believe in magic and Santa and his elves and reindeer — where imagination is fostered and encouraged.

This wasn’t so for a Texas kindergarten teacher, whose only “dashing through the snow” this year was dashing the hopes and breaking the hearts of her 5-year-old students by telling them Santa isn’t real.

The parents of a 5-year-old girl received the unexpected news when their daughter came home from school one day and asked if Santa is real. (If any kids are reading this, it’s a dumb question. Of course, he is.)…

The mother, Susan Tietz Gammage, said she emailed the principal of the school to complain about the incident, who responded that he was “horrified” about the anti-Santa statements and that the teacher has been reprimanded and “given tools” to deal with the situation for following years.

So, if a teacher was reprimanded for telling her students (they are students, aren’t they?) the truth about Santa Claus, does this mean she’s not supposed to teach them the truth? Aren’t those kids at school (kindergarten is school, isn’t it?) to learn? Let me hastily add that I don’t believe it’s good form for a teacher to go out of her way to destroy his student’s religious faith, whatever it may be. There must be a list of topics the teacher is supposed to teach his students – and the myth of Santa Claus surely isn’t on that list. But if the subject just happens to come up, and if one of the children happens to ask about it, then I would expect the teacher to tell him the truth. Education is about the truth.

Those parents who feel strongly about their children believing in Santa Claus should send them to a religious school.

I couldn’t help but notice the phrase “anti-Santa”. When we promote race-realist concepts, concepts that are strongly supported by the latest science, we are accused of being “anti-black” or “anti people-of-color.” Stating a fact does not make somebody anti anything. I will qualify this by stating that if the teacher went out of her way to destroy the children’s belief in Santa, then this would mean she’s against the playful, and innocent, childhood concept of Santa Claus. In the same way, if I went door to door in a Mormon neighborhood and argued against the Book of Mormon, this would probably mean I’m anti-Mormon. But if the subject came up and I stated the truth about it, then all it means is I’m stating the truth.

Childhood innocence is up to parents to protect and gradually replace with wisdom and responsibility. Discovering the truth about Santa Claus is a lot like finding out about sex. If the parents introduce it with a smile, a hug, playfulness and love, then there is nothing traumatic about it at all – even if the child has already had his eyes opened by another and approaches his parents with questions (as in the above article). If the parents laugh a silly laugh, give the child an affectionate pinch on the cheek, and explain it in terms he can understand, then all is well. But if the parents show anger or stress, the child will pick up on this and become traumatized. There is very little a teacher can do, short of actual abuse, that a parent can’t make right. In fact, a teacher’s mistakes are often great parenting opportunities.

It’s a pity so many children attend kindergarten. Because of kindergarten, the most formative years are taken from the parents and given to strangers. It’s a pity because a parent’s main priority in life should be to raise his own child. It appears that public education has caused too many parents to forget the skill of parenting, as we can see from the parental reactions in the above story.

Truth be told, in many cases both parents are forced to work so that they can afford a house in a safe neighborhood. With both parents working, they have little choice but to avail themselves of public schools. It’s a cruel irony that they are forced to send their children to schools where the “wonders of diversity” are pounded into their heads – the same diversity that forced both parents to work in order to escape it, thus rendering them unable to home-school and making it more difficult to teach their children the dangers of diversity. At the same time, a big chunk of their earnings is expropriated in order to perpetuate, and expand, this diversity. It’s diabolical.